JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Packers didn’t even have the game’s most important play in their plan entering Sunday.
They discussed implementing it on Tuesday but decided against it. Based on the Jaguars’ coverage of a keeper that the Packers ran earlier in the game, passing game coordinator Jason Vrable suggested to head coach Matt LaFleur they add it to the playbook mid-game without any practice reps on it during the week.
The situation: first-and-10 from the Packers’ 30-yard line with one minute, 48 seconds left in a 27-27 game. Wide receiver Romeo Doubs was inside the numbers on the right of the formation and wideout Christian Watson was the same on the left. Tight end Tucker Kraft was staggered back and crouched on the left side with receiver Jayden Reed staggered from the slot on the right side standing up. The Packers ran left with Josh Jacobs, who put his foot in the ground and cut back up the middle for a modest 4 yards. Kraft wrapped around the formation to cut block edge rusher Travon Walker while Reed handled cornerback Jarrian Jones showing pressure from the nickel.
That wasn’t the play they added on the sideline, though. That came next.
The Packers lined up in the exact same formation. Doubs and Watson inside the numbers. Kraft and Reed staggered on opposite sides. This time, Reed crouched down, hands on knees, as if he was preparing to block. And this time, the Jaguars didn’t show nickel pressure, which took responsibility off Reed. Not only that, but the strong safety rotated from down low on the left side of the defensive formation to down low on the right side, perhaps anticipating another run left since the Packers showed the same formation pre-snap.
Backup quarterback Malik Willis, filling in for the injured Jordan Love (more on that below) faked the handoff to Jacobs to the left, the play they had just run. Reed gave Walker a quick shove from the right side of the formation and while Kraft blocked Walker standing up this time instead of taking out his legs after looping across the formation, Reed ran across the face of strong safety Andre Cisco between the numbers 2 yards past the line of scrimmage. He continued up the left sideline, outside the numbers, unmarked. Cisco had fallen (he said postgame he cramped on the play), but it wouldn’t have mattered. Reed had him beaten and deep safety Darnell Savage Jr., who spent the last five seasons with the Packers after they drafted him in the first round in 2019, was too slow to get over.
Willis placed a perfect ball on Reed for 51 yards to get the Packers into field-goal range. Reed was so open that he caught the ball at the Jaguars’ 42-yard line and got 27 yards after the catch. That was the play that they decided against adding early in the week, that Vrable suggested they add mid-game and that Willis called an audible to before the snap. The Packers were about to run the same running play because of the different look Jacksonville presented that would enable Reed to come free across the formation up the left sideline. After the completion, Willis hoisted both his arms in the air.
“It was perfect,” Willis said. “We love to see it.”
“I already knew I was gonna be open before the play was even called,” Reed said. “Just great play-calling by Coach and great execution by us.”
“I was just looking for the rotation,” LaFleur said of the strong safety rotating to the right side of the defensive formation. “On the second play, they showed strong rotation, got the look and the rest is history … Jayden Reed, Tucker, the O-line, the backs, everybody’s selling it. And then ultimately Malik making the throw. So that was a pretty cool one. Probably one I’ll never forget.
“I’m sure they were thinking like, ‘What the heck are these guys doing? They’re going to play for overtime,’” LaFleur said of the Jaguars. “I was just hoping that there was going to be strong rotation and had a pretty good idea, with the amount of single safety they were playing throughout the course of the game, that there was a chance we could get it and we got it.”
REEEEEEEEED!#GBvsJAX pic.twitter.com/oGewT53OaM
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) October 27, 2024
The Packers had a first-and-10 from the Jaguars’ 15-yard line tied with 1:04 remaining. Jacksonville had two timeouts remaining. Jacobs ran for 3 yards on first down and then came out because he was hurt while the Jaguars called their second timeout (Jacobs wanted to stay in, LaFleur said, but the head coach thought it was best Jacobs get checked). Third-string running back Chris Brooks, who had never scored a touchdown since entering the league last season, took the next handoff up the middle and the Jaguars tried to let him score. Instead, after getting 1 yard past the first-down marker, Brooks went down at the 4-yard line to keep possession and force the Jaguars to use their final timeout.
“Just don’t score,” Brooks said of what he was thinking when the Jaguars tried letting him score. “That’s the only thing going through my mind … it’s for the greater good of the team, so it’s always a pleasure to get the win first and then do whatever I can to help the team.”
That set up two kneels by Willis and another walk-off field goal by kicker Brandon McManus, this one a 24-yard chip shot to give the veteran two game-winners at the buzzer in as many weeks with the team. Packers 30, Jaguars 27, Green Bay escaping with a win in a game they had no business losing. The Packers are now 6-2 ahead of a date with the Lions (6-1) at Lambeau Field next Sunday.
“It wasn’t our cleanest game, I would say, but I thought just the ability to find a way to get it done — ultimately that’s what it’s all about,” LaFleur said.
As for Love, he injured his groin on the final play of the Packers’ opening drive after rolling right and throwing incomplete back across the middle. He came up limping but remained in the game for another two quarters before the injury worsened when Walker dealt him a shot to the back well after the play that sent Love tumbling early in the third quarter.
Jordan Love played about two quarters with an injured groin. Here’s is what happened on his final play. pic.twitter.com/b5qymt9HGh
— Matt Schneidman (@mattschneidman) October 27, 2024
Love couldn’t hobble all the way to the sideline, instead laying on his back in the field of play while trainers worked on him. Love tried stretching out the groin on the sideline and even wore his helmet standing up on the edge of the sideline while the offense was on the field, but he didn’t return. LaFleur didn’t have any information on the severity of Love’s injury postgame.
Willis again succeeded in relief of Love, completing 4-of-5 passes for 56 yards and a touchdown while scrambling twice for 25 yards, just like he commanded the offense well in two wins against the Colts and Titans when Love was sidelined with a sprained MCL earlier in the season. Willis played “as well as we could ever expect him to,” LaFleur said, and the Packers will need him to do the same against the Lions if Love can’t go next weekend.
“Everybody could see him struggling to move around,” LaFleur said of Love. “And it got to a point where we didn’t feel like, and he didn’t feel like, he could protect himself. So we went with Malik and you can’t say enough great things about Malik Willis, the job that he’s able to do to go in there. The moment’s never too big for him and he made a lot of big-time plays in this game … Just really proud of our guys.”
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(Photo: Tucker Kraft and Malik Willis celebrate a touchdown in the fourth quarter: Rich Storry / Getty Images)
